Accidentally Saving Pretty Much Everyone
by turtlethewriter
Summary: Alicia Andrews, a plucky, sarcastic young engineer who somehow manages to get herself dragged into Malcolm Merlyn's plot, also somehow manages to worm her way into the hearts of the members of Team Arrow, saves the world while doing it, and hides a surprising backstory. Follows the series (mostly) with time jumps. Eventual Barry/OC, immediate and obvious Felicity/Oliver.
1. Chapter 1

**(A/N) Hey! This is the first part of my Arrow fic. Don't worry, I'm a huge Olicity shipper, so this isn't Oliver/OC. It's actually eventual Barry/OC. And absolutely Felicity/Oliver. If I get to that point, anyway. I decided not to label it as a crossover between Arrow and The Flash, considering The Flash hasn't (officially) premiered yet and I don't really consider this to be a crossover if it doesn't include other characters than just Barry from The Flash. Anyway, I got the idea of an OC from the huge Undertaking plot, having to do with the earthquake device. I always feel the need for another awkward, plucky, unlikely hero in pretty much every superhero story. And Alicia is the "accidentally saves the world" type. I can't say what happens because it's pretty cool. And also a little bit shocking. And it comes into play ****_very _****early on. Overall, if this gets a good response I guess I'll post the next part. Also, if you read my other story, Delusions, you might have a long-awaited update in the future. Hurrah!**

Alicia's life was relatively normal. She went to work at seven in the morning, and usually arrived home at three or later. She had an office, a desk, and a lab to work in. She also had a good, five-figure salary- typical for a simple engineer/occasional paper pusher.

The only odd part for her was that the work was never challenging enough. It was either editing documents, learning about the state of the stocks, or building some requested item. She'd never had a very interesting project.

Which was why she usually got her work done a bit too early. They'd give her three weeks to have several files of papers in order, and she'd do it a few days after she was given the project.

So it wasn't all that unusual for her to have to go to the CEO himself, Walter Steele, to turn in a project, as her other bosses were often busy or simply not at work. Larger salaries made for longer vacations, after all.

It was, however, unusual to have half of the Queen family in the office as well. Mostly because five years ago Oliver Queen had been presumed dead, only to show up on a highly unheard of island in the North China Sea.

Which was why she was finding it difficult to even try to enter the office. How do you even approach a billionaire family? The possibilities of how _that _meeting would go were daunting.

"Um, excuse me, but do you know how long Mr. Steele will be busy?" she turned her concerns to the Executive Assistant, who looked up from her magazine with slight exasperation. "I'm sorry, it's just that I have some files he asked for."

"Can't you give them to your actual boss?" the woman asked, pinching the bridge of her nose in annoyance. In the secretary's defense, she had to deal with this employee almost daily.

"No, actually, he's on vacation for the next week or so," Alicia explained, shrinking back meekly. The woman was older, more experienced, and, in Alicia's opinion, a little scary. "I'm sorry for bothering you, I'll just go back to my office and come back later…" The secretary rolled her eyes, and she took that as confirmation to leave.

Just as she'd taken the first step to the exit, the CEO's booming voice interrupted her efforts.

"Miss Andrews!"

She grimaced while her back was still turned, and then whirled around with a polite smile on her face. "Mr. Steele, I'm sorry to interrupt the family meeting, but I have the files you asked for. It took longer than usual, since Mr. Jacobs doesn't seem to understand how to write a professional document, and this is also an unorthodox assignment for me."

The files were quickly in the CEO's outstretched hand, and Alicia was standing with her hands clasped behind her back, feeling distinctly out of place in her casual clothing in the most classy part of the building.

"These are three weeks early," Mr. Steele remarked, his stern tone failing to hide his amusement.

"Yes, well, it's not exactly a hard assignment. It's just documents," she flinched, "I mean, obviously very _important _documents, but it's nothing like rebuilding a helicopter, which is what I thought I was going to be doing today, hence the clothing," she gestured to her attire, jeans, a black button-down, and ratty converse, with only her ID badge to confirm that she was an employee.

Walter chuckled, startling the employee out of her embarrassment. "Well, your professors didn't lie when they said you were efficient, if a little…" he struggled to find a non-offensive replacement for the word they'd used.

"Odd?" she surprised him by finishing his sentence with a wry grin. "I suppose you didn't talk to my mechanical engineering professor, then, because he called me MacGyver."

"I'd agree with that nickname, since you always seem to come up with the strangest solutions, while being the most efficient and still doing the job," Mr. Steele smiled at her, and she scratched the back of her neck with a grimace.

"Well, I don't know about the most efficient, considering the incident with the coffee maker last week. We really need a new one of those after I…" she trailed off from her self-deprecation as two members of the Queen family entered the room, studying them with thinly-veiled curiosity, her focus mostly on the younger of the pair, Oliver Queen.

"Ah, Oliver, Moira, this is one of QC's best and brightest, Alicia Andrews," Walter extended an arm to his wife and stepson, guiding them over to meet the young woman.

Oliver was the one who caught her mouthing "best and brightest?" silently, and had to hide a grin by biting his lip. Moira, however, was taking in the girl's appearance with slight incredulity. The short, dark hair was slightly unprofessional, after all.

So, the son of the family took the initiative to hold out a hand, which she shook immediately, a bright smile lighting up her features. "Oliver Queen," he introduced, smiling politely. She dropped his hand with a laugh.

"Oh, there's really no need for introductions. Everyone in this city knows who you are at this point," she winced, then pressed her forefinger and thumb to the bridge of her nose, closing her eyes. "That sounded rude. I definitely did not intend for that to sound rude."

He just laughed, "I've heard it before."

"Right, um, Mr. Steele, I should probably get back to work. Mr. Merlyn came in with some sort of personal project and it sounded pretty important and he scares the crap out of me so I'm gonna…" she pointed to the exit and then waved awkwardly before practically sprinting out of the room, her shoes squeaking on the floor as she made a sharp turn to the staircase.

"Best and brightest?" Moira said dryly, turning to Walter.

"Well, she graduated high school at sixteen with a 9.5 GPA, and spent three years at CalTech getting her PhD, so yes, I consider her to be very bright," Walter replied, ignoring her tone, "if a little… well, odd."

"I think she's charming," Oliver interrupted, adopting the 'Queenly' tone of voice. "And to have Malcolm Merlyn ask her to do something, she must have a reputation among several companies."

"Well, Wayne Industries, Merlyn Enterprises, and Queen Consolidated were all vying to hire her and Miss Smoak. They both have impressive reputations, after all," Walter remarked, leading the family to the elevator.

"Hmm," Moira shrugged, "why don't we walk through her department to get an idea of what she does? It'll be good for you, Oliver, to learn some of what employees here do."

* * *

Within the next few minutes, they were outside the large lab that Alicia worked in, watching the girl work on something that looked a little… strange. To her, at least. They couldn't actually see what she was so worked up about.

"Are you _sure _these are the blueprints he gave us? Because this is the weirdest piece of tech I'll probably ever make," they heard her say to another engineer, who threw up his hands and shrugged.

"Hey, he gave us the flash drive and I plugged it in. That's what came up," he defended, gesturing to the computer screen they were both staring at.

Alicia made a noise of frustration, "Do you think it would be safe to ask him what it's for just to get some context?"

Both employees looked at each other, only to burst out laughing.

"Yeah, Alice, ask a multi-millionaire for confidential information. That'll work out," the other shook his head, grinning.

"True. I'd get sent away with an ominous 'stop asking questions'," she rolled her eyes, "that's what happened when I asked Felicity why she came home so late. Also, don't call me that. Uh-li-see-uh. How hard is it?"

"Right, I forgot you two are roommates."

"Oh, sure, focus on _that _instead of the fact that she stays out late all the time. Or how to pronounce my name. Jeez, for someone who pines after her you sure have skewed priorities. I mean, what if she secretly has a boyfriend?" she sighed and switched the topic back to whatever they were working on. "Well, I'm gonna have to borrow the 3D printer for this one. There's no way I'm doing that much work for something that can be made out of steel. Or silver. Or plastic. This thing'll work either way."

"Good luck with that," her partner said distractedly, already moving on to something else.

"Jackass," she muttered under her breath, only to look up and notice the Queen family finally walking away from the lab. "Do you think they heard all that?"

"Huh?"

"Oh my god, Jeremy, you are useless."

"Yes, but I'm only useless for you."

"I'm honored."

**(A/N) Thanks for reading, and I appreciate any feedback! ~J**


	2. Chapter 2

It was several months later that she saw a member of the Queen family again. And it was definitely not in the best of circumstances.

In fact, Oliver Queen was interrogating her. Well, he didn't think she knew it was him. But she did. Seriously, the guy thought he could wear a hood and some green paint and not have his identity compromised? He had to be a pretty bad vigilante if he thought that.

She was tied to a chair in the middle of some kind of empty warehouse-type building, with your usual interrogating-y lights set up around the perimeter of the room, with her chair right in the middle. Oliver- the Hood-vigilante-whatever- was standing in front of her, armed with a bow and quiver stocked full of arrows. They looked pretty sharp from where she was, too. Well-designed, but they could be made better. Then again he probably made them himself so he wouldn't leave any kind of money trail.

Of course, Alicia's slightly panicky thought-processing went on hold when the Hood grabbed the chair she was currently tied to and pushed it back.

"Did you build a device for Malcolm Merlyn?!"

"Oh, right," she leaned back as far as she could when he came closer. "Uh, yes, I did. I don't know what it was for. He just sent me the blueprints for a tiny piece of something bigger and asked me to build that tiny piece, which I did, because he scares me. I mean, most billionaires do."

He ignored that last bit.

"Why? I mean, you wouldn't be asking… well, interrogating me about it unless that bigger device was important or… dangerous…" she squinted at him, tilting her head. "Do _you _know what it was for?"

"I'm the one doing the interrogating."

"Right. Nice voice manipulator, by the way." She could just barely see him lift an eyebrow at her remark. "I've always wanted one of those. The bow's pretty cool too, but using a compact bow better suited to you would probably work more smoothly. You might even invest in a scope. Though I'm sure that one has some sentimental value. I mean, you've used it a lot lately. Saved a lot of lives, taken a lot of others. The usual vigilante-ing lifestyle. If there is such a thing. Hey, is there a-?"

"You talk too much." he walked away from her again, letting the legs of the chair land safely back on solid ground.

"I've been told. I think it's probably helpful for interrogative purposes, though, I mean, I've also been told that I reveal a lot about myself when I talk too much because I'm nervous or scared or something and that supposedly makes it easy to get information from-"

"You know, I have a friend who does the same thing." he moved, and then a low beeping noise alerted her to the fact that he'd just turned off his voice manipulator.

"Wh-"

Felicity. Felicity's babbling. Late nights out. Complaining about people touching her computers. Not to mention she worked at QC so Oliver must have met her.

"Oh! Okay! So _that's _where Felicity goes all the time!" she leaned forward enthusiastically, startling Oliver and also revealing to him that she'd gotten out of the zip ties as she clasped her hands in her lap. "I mean, I thought it was suspicious, but it turns out she's been saving the city this whole time! And with Oliver Queen! No wonder she's turned down everyone who asks her out."

"How'd you-?"

"Mr. Queen, if you think green paint and a hood is a good disguise, you need a lesson in 'How to be a Vigilante 101'," she frowned, "though, I only know it's you because your profile is pretty unforgettable," she winced. "Saying that, usually you should be fine identity wise unless you're confronting people that know you well."

He'd actually been asking about how she got out of the zip ties, but considered her for a moment before he pulled his hood down, bewildered when she grinned.

"Sorry, it's just-" she laughed. "I can't believe I didn't see it before. You being the Hood makes a lot of sense. You've got the whole broody thing down to a T. And also the aim. The aim's important too."

"Obviously," he said dryly, the corners of his mouth betraying him by ticking upwards. Then, before he could stop himself, he blurted, "You remind me of my sister."

Alicia just raised an eyebrow.

"I mean, she was like you when she was younger. Speedy."

"So I act like a twelve-year-old," she laughed as he tried to backtrack. "Again, I've heard it before." she leaned forward on her elbows as he sat, cross-legged, on the floor. The image of the Arrow setting his bow on his lap almost made her lose her composure again. To anyone else, the scene would look a bit too relaxed for a hooded vigilante.

"So," she prompted cautiously, "aside from you deciding to reveal your identity formally, what's this about? I mean, what was Merlyn asking me to build?"

Oliver's sigh rang through the mostly silent warehouse, interrupting the sound of water dripping from a pipe somewhere in the building. "I don't think you want to know."

"Queen, if there's something dangerous going on in the city that I'm somehow involved in, I definitely want to know," she replied steadily even as a trace of worry crept into the slight narrowing of her eyes.

He grumbled under his breath about little sisters not knowing what's best for themselves before scrubbing a hand over his face and giving in. "You know about what happened to Merlyn's wife, right?"

"Yeah, killed in the Glades. It happened near my old neighborhood," she remarked, sitting up straighter. "I was five when that happened."

"I was eight. Anyway, Merlyn got on a revenge streak after that."

"Revenge against who? I mean, they never found who did it." she scratched the tip of her nose. "Though, it's probable that it was one of the gangs that used to hang around there. I got into a couple of scraps with them once or twice."

He allowed himself a raised eyebrow at her last statement, before clearing his throat and answering, heavy with grief, "Against the Glades."

"Against the- wait. How-?"

"I managed to get information that he got Unidac Industries to build something to level the glades. An earthquake machine. But he needed someone to specially build a small, important part of it that pretty much controls the whole thing," Oliver explained, watching as the blood slowy drained from her face, a wave of guilt crashing over her almost visibly as she swayed slightly and sat back.

"A battery," she muttered, and then groaned and put her head in her hands. "_That's _what it was. Stupid goddamn thing took me three days to make and I got acid burns because of it. And it's going to have a hand in killing people, jesus fucking _christ._"

"It's not your fault. If you'd refused or confronted him he probably would have had you killed like he did most of the other scientists," he soothed, politely ignoring the way she angrily scrubbed away a stray tear.

"Good to know," she mumbled. "Why come to me now, though?" He just shrugged.

"You know how a part of it works, you could help stop it."

"I dunno, I mean, it was pretty complicated and I took it pretty seriously so I _did _install a failsafe, but it's a complicated one and-"

"I also want you on the team."

For about ten minutes, there was complete silence broken only by the quiet creaking of pipes somewhere in the building. So, he decided to add another bit into the bomb he'd dropped.

"Plus, considering you got out of those zip ties and got into scraps with gangs, I'm pretty sure your role on the team would consist of more than just utilizing your skills as an engineer."

For a moment she struggled to come up with an answer, and finally shook her head in disbelief.

"Well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

* * *

Verdant was empty when they arrived, and Oliver found it all too disturbing when Alicia had no problem figuring out what the code was to get to the basement.

"One of your projects can be to make our security system not suck," he remarked as he watched her punch in the numbers after a minute of consideration.

"Oh, good, because it's a little bit sad. You should at least have some sort of facial recognition program connecting to whatever computer system Felicity has rigged up," she said this as they walked down the stairs, and was met with a familiar yelp as they reached the floor.

"Please, please don't hate me! I'm your roommate and your best friend and I know you wouldn't want to kill me or anything but I didn't tell you about this and didn't come up with a good excuse and you probably want to strangle me which is totally understandable but-" Felicity took in a great gulp of air before she continued, waving her hands around and making her ponytail bob hypnotizingly, up until a huge, dark hand landed on her shoulder and an equally huge man appeared behind her.

"Felicity, slow down," he calmed, patting her shoulder once before holding out a hand to Alicia, who took it automatically. "John Diggle," he shook her hand, "you must be Alicia Andrews. Felicity told us about you."

"That's me," was all Alicia could say as he dropped her hand. She was a little busy being terrified of his biceps. "And, uh, Felicity, it's fine. I kind of guessed it when I figured out the Arrow was Oliver. And I wouldn't strangle you. Ever. You're taller than me, anyway."

"Oh, good, 'cause, I mean, you could totally kick my ass despite being shorter than me and John already does that enough but he rarely does damage and you could do some damage. I mean that time you took out the robber with the vase-" Felicity bit her lip to stop herself continuing, and Alicia sidled a glance at Oliver to see he was looking at the rambling blonde with affectionate amusement.

"Plus there's no way anyone could ever get angry with you. I mean, you're adorable," Alicia continued, filing away Oliver's expression to memory. He wouldn't be the first one to get reeled in by Felicity Smoak. Hell, she had been, too.

"Great, thanks," Felicity replied, rolling her eyes. "Oh, and I got Jeremy to tell me about the coffee maker incident."

"Oh, that little twerp. You know he has a major frat boy crush on you, right? You manipulated the poor guy," Alicia shook her head, "shame on you."

"_You're _the one who got an entire group of frat boys to do your homework, supposedly."

They fell into an easy rhythm of banter, and Oliver and Diggle stood back in disbelief, Oliver scratching the back of his neck and shaking his head before removing the rest of his Arrow getup.

"My question is, how the hell did you make the coffee maker _explode?_"

Oliver paused in the process of removing his gloves to share a look with Diggle, who just shrugged and held back a laugh.

"It was in the engineering department. We have gunpowder there. I had to get stitches," she took a moment to pout at her hand, where a scar now replaced the once nasty cut.

"Everyone blames you for it, you know," Felicity teased.

"Yeah, yeah, I know, I just didn't want to name names and get the culprit in trouble," she muttered, moving to sit on one of the many tables in the room. "I like your computer setup, by the way. Very sleek."

"Thanks. So, you say Jeremy has a crush on me?"

"Yup," Alicia quipped, while casting a glance in Oliver's direction, managing not to grin as his shoulders stiffened.

"Huh. Maybe I should ask him out."

"Yeah, honey, I think we both know that's not going to happen," she tilted her head subtly in Oliver's direction, and Felicity just grimaced.

Diggle, who had been watching the whole conversation with idle interest, suddenly spoke up. "So! Let's get you something to work on."

* * *

Ten minutes and several unhelpful conversations later, Alicia found herself sitting in front of a beat-up, plateless, black motorcycle, fighting the urge to ask if those were really bullet holes. Because they were. Obviously. It really wasn't all that surprising that the Arrow would be driving a motorcycle through bad neighborhoods, but Alicia's mechanic mind couldn't help but be a little scandalized at the thought that he'd ruin such a wonderful piece of equipment.

And it was pretty ruined. She was surprise the bike had held together that long.

"If I shake it, I wonder if it'll rattle like a maraca. Except with bullets," she mumbled to herself, ignoring the sounds of Oliver hitting stuff with a big stick behind her, and instead began to take the bike apart, removing parts that were too damaged to function.

In fact, most of the bike was ruined. Which meant she had to get new parts..

"You know, it would probably be better just to buy a new bike," she called over her shoulder, "this one is trashed. Like, completely trashed. I'm not even sure the engine still works." she reached up and revved the motorcycle to demonstrate. "Okay, so the engine works. Barely."

"Can't buy a new one, it'd leave a paper trail," was his clipped response.

"Well, then, I've got a lot of shopping to do," she chose to ignore his tone and returned to her personal monologue briefly before getting up in search of a pen, moving to Felicity's desk to lean over her shoulder and swipe one from the large cup of them. The blonde didn't even glance up at her.

"What're you doing?" Oliver interrupted, just as she had taken a pen and put it between her teeth.

"Uh," the sound was muffled by the pen, so she took it out of her mouth. "Making a list?"

"Why?"

"Beeecause I need spare parts. When I say trashed I mean _trashed. _Most of the vital organs of the bike are working but I need the pieces that keep it together," she tapped the pen against her palm, gesturing over to the pathetic motorcycle. "I also need a new screwdriver, come to think of it." she uncapped the pen and drew something on her hand, lifting it up to show a doodle of a screwdriver. "See?"

"Couldn't you just use paper?" Felicity quipped from her chair, sighing. "It makes having a shopping list so much easier, because then we can _both _write things down."

"Paper is for groceries, my hand is for tools and stuff. Is that a good compromise?" Alicia laughed as Felicity just stuck her tongue out in response. "Besides, writing on my hand makes it easier to remember. And I have to draw stuff to get the right dimensions and all that. Have you got the blueprints yet?" she swiftly changed the subject, diverting Oliver's attention from her to Felicity.

"Almost… yeah." Felicity pressed a key, bringing up a large, very complicated diagram. Alicia whistled.

"Well, I can see where the battery comes into play. You were right, it's an important part. Connects to pretty much everything else…" she tapped her bottom lip with her index finger, still examining the blueprint.

"How can you even _see _that?" Diggle moved in behind them, crossing his arms and shaking his head.

Alicia shrugged, "I make a living off of reading blueprints. If I can't read them then I'm useless. Felicity, could you print these out for me?"

Oliver noted the way she didn't seem to notice her own self-deprecation.

Her ponytail bobbed and a few seconds later the prints were slowly coming out of the large printer on the floor, right into Alicia's lap. Suddenly she didn't care so much about the beat-up motorcycle, and she started writing notes on the paper.

Actually, what made her so focused on the blueprints was a small ache in the bridge of her nose that told her she was about to cry. Seeing the thing she'd built in play in the blueprints made it hard to ignore the part she played in the potential destruction of the place she'd grown up in. In fact, the device would probably bring her old house down along with whatever family had moved into it after she'd moved out. Along with her current apartment. It was probably time to move out again.

* * *

Only a few days later, she found herself preparing to relay written instructions on how to disable the device to Detective Lance, only to suddenly shove the phone to Felicity. The realization that Merlyn had to cover all his bases hit her like a bucket of icewater as a chill ran down her spine.

She'd built _two _batteries, and the blueprints only called for one.

This was how she ended up stealing a motorcycle and, on intuition, sprinting into a warehouse basement two minutes before the tremors would start.

So, with her tool belt in hand, she carefully lifted a hand and… tore off a panel on the device. There was no time for delicacy.

She'd only been on the team for a few days, but they'd still given her a small bluetooth that fit in her ear, so she had the downside of hearing Oliver's fight with Malcolm Merlyn and Felicity's calm instructions to Lance.

Unfortunately she had a brief thought about getting buried alive. The only way anyone would tell where she was was with the tracker embedded in the sole of her shoe. If she was buried alive she'd at least be found. Which was sort of a good thing if anyone actually bothered to go to her funeral.

The reason she stood there doing her best to at least minimize the damage the device would make was because it had been personal from the beginning. The threat of losing her life to the heavy concrete above her head had no power to scare her off when she thought about _that. _

She wasn't part of the team, she didn't have experience fighting crime, and if Oliver could he would be yelling about how it wasn't her responsibility like he had not even the day before but a few hours earlier.

But it _was. _

It was her willingness to have a new project that had a hand in this. Sure, Malcolm would have found someone else to build the battery if she'd refused, but they wouldn't have made it this complicated.

She liked to think that anyone else would include a failsafe, though. If you didn't know what you were building, it was only logical to include a self-destruct maneuver.

The only problem with the situation was that this particular device was different, if only slightly.

After all, there'd been two different batteries. She'd only considered one of them in the plans to disable the machine.

When she only had forty-five seconds left, it became clear that her only option was to drain the battery.

Draining the battery as in punching a hole in it and letting very dangerous acid leak out and probably burn through the concrete floor. Even that wouldn't stop the device from working; it would only make the tremors less violent. Which still left her probably getting buried alive.

"Oh, lord help me," she muttered, shaking out her hands and ignoring Oliver's distorted voice in her ear as he yelled at Merlyn.

At which point the fact that there were two devices was revealed.

This was also when around half of the acid had drained out, some of the weaker stuff eating through her shoes. And also burning her toes a little. For the sake of her pedicure (and the skin on her toes), she kicked off her shoes and deliberately avoided looking at her feet.

At the same time, her name was yelled by three different people all at once, because apparently they'd only just realized where she'd probably gone.

Suddenly, her forty-five seconds were up.

The ground began to shake.

**(A/N) Aaand I'm back! Thanks for the reviews, follows, and favorites! I can say that I have a lot planned for this story, and I'd actually consider these two chapters as more of a prologue than anything else, which is why I got into the Undertaking so fast. Sorry if that was a bit of a headrush for you guys, but I'm eager to get into the good stuff, which includes some connections to other things. Mainly DC things. Not too heavily though. If you've watched even just Christian Bale's Batman films you'll get where I'm going when I get there. Oh, dang, I'm excited. **

**Let it be said that I'm ****_absolutely _****continuing this story. Alicia has too big of a cool backstory to be ignored.**

**I'd appreciate any feedback you could give!**

**In response to the reviews, I don't really go for OC stories (in the Arrow category at least) either, or usually write them, but sometimes there's a point that just calls for a different character to join in the charade. I'm glad you like this!**

**Again, thanks for reading!**

**~J**


	3. Chapter 3

**Thank you to the reviewer who notified me to the fact that this was in HTML code before. Somethin' weird went down but it's all good now.**

* * *

Felicity Smoak had the unique ability to fall asleep pretty much anywhere. Whether it was the arm of a chair, the uncomfortable interior of a car, in a plane with a kid kicking at the back of her seat, or on the floor, she was guaranteed to crash within twenty minutes or less.

Evidently, sitting by the side of a hospital bed was not one of those places. Not when she was too busy anxiously watching a heart monitor.

The person currently knocked out in the hospital bed had been through a lot: covered by about half of a building, nearly run through by a support pole, been exposed to natural gas… it was a miracle that Tommy Merlyn was alive.

Which was why she'd taken over watching the heart monitor, because Oliver had disappeared the second he'd heard the word "miracle" from the doctor's mouth, no doubt to brood and think about what would've happened if Tommy had died.

Of course, Felicity was a little resentful of Oliver's brooding tendencies at the moment, because a few rooms away, her roommate was sporting a broken arm, acid burns, and a concussion. Tommy was in the hospital for anxiety and a dislocated shoulder. Alicia probably had PTSD.

She was going to kill Oliver for abandoning his best friend when he got back. And for making her abandon her recently-moved-in roommate.

Felicity had only been living with Alicia for a few months, but she had quickly become very protective of the younger woman, even though they still weren't sure what to think of each other, especially after the revelation that Felicity was working for-with-the Arrow.

In fact, the first night of the revelation, they'd gone home together. Felicity had considered having a conversation in the car, but found the atmosphere too tense to open her mouth.

They both knew that Alicia was angry with her underneath the amiable exterior she gave everyone in the Foundry whenever she walked in at night. Her reason for being angry with her, Felicity didn't quite know.

She had her suspicions, of course. Maybe Alicia felt betrayed or lied to, maybe she was hurt that Felicity hadn't trusted her enough, or maybe it was something bigger. When she tried to think about any possible bigger reasons, Felicity quickly reached a block every time because she wasn't willing to think of her sort-of friend in a negative light.

Felicity did know that when the paramedics had found Alicia coughing and covered by a warehouse, she'd been terrified that she'd be added to the list of the dead, even if she was awake and clearly aware of how much pain she was in.

Maybe it was just her discomfort with the idea of death, but she found it difficult to cope with the idea of no longer having her oddity of a roommate around to make her coffee in the mornings.

"Excuse me?"

Felicity jumped in her seat and whirled to see the person who'd carefully interrupted the peaceful, steady beeping of the heart monitor. Only to see none other than Laurel Lance.

"Oh, hi! Sorry, Oliver-Mr. Queen asked me to keep an eye on him. I don't know when he'll be back so you can go ahead and take the chair, you obviously want to visit Tommy-" the lawyer just stared at her in bewilderment, making no move to hide her bloodshot, puffy eyes, so Felicity continued uninterrupted. "I have a friend to visit a few rooms away so you can take over for me while I just-" she pointed towards the door and quickly sprinted out, only to be stopped by a soft voice.

"Um, thanks," Laurel cleared her throat, "for looking after him. You should go see your friend."

Surprised by her (actually nice) comment, Felicity took a moment to take note of this new development before nodding jerkily and scampering off to Alicia's room.

Instead of being greeted by her friend alone in a hospital bed, she was met with the sight of both Oliver and Diggle in the room with her, Oliver on the chair and Diggle leaning by the doorway. Felicity ignored Diggle's greeting in favor of staring in disbelief at Oliver.

"This is where you went?" She wasn't accusing, she was just surprised at the level of concern he showed just by being in the room. Oliver didn't look at her, and in the few moments where no one said anything, Felicity realized how much guilt he held in the way his shoulders were hunched, how his eyes were fixed on the steady jumps on the heart monitor, and the placement of his fingers on Alicia's wrist, right on her pulse.

"She's just a kid," Oliver managed to say, his voice breaking roughly, "and she figured it out fast enough to get there. I didn't."

"Oliver-" Diggle moved away from the doorway towards the hospital bed, but Oliver barreled on.

"Merlyn meant for so many more people to die, but she lowered the body count, probably by hundreds. She did." Felicity found herself wondering exactly how many people would have died had Alicia not been there and shivering at the thought. Around two hundred people had still died, but how many more did Malcolm expect to kill? "How am I supposed to say I want her off the team because she's so young when she's such an asset?" Oliver continued, finally looking up at them.

"Oliver, she's twenty. She can make that decision for herself when she wakes up. You're thinking of her like she's your sister," Diggle pointed out, leaning against the head of the hospital bed and raising an eyebrow.

"But she got hurt-"

"We've all gotten hurt in this vendetta. Did Felicity decide to quit when Helena came after her, or when the Dodger put a bomb around her neck?" Diggle sighed when Oliver shook his head. "Right, because she's as invested in this as I am. As we all are." He paused for a minute, studying Alicia's sleeping, bruised form thoughtfully. "Something tells me Alicia is as well, and that she's gonna be pretty upset if you try to get her to give it up, no matter if you act like her older brother."

The trio was silent, each of them listening to the monitor, waiting for the inevitable moment when the peace would be broken by Alicia waking up.

And, when she did, Felicity realized that when she inevitably chose to stay with the team, there was no doubt that Oliver's protectiveness would keep her from being in the hospital for a long time, if anything was to be judged by the way he calmly refused to leave her side once the doctors arrived.

* * *

**(A/N) There we go- no more gibberish. Hopefully. FF glitched on me! *shakes fist* Hopefully that won't happen again. No promises, though! This was a short one, kind of a filler, but I wanted to establish a little bit of background and some other writerly stuff. Anyway, from this point forward this'll pretty much follow the series, but kind of behind the scenes with more minor missions than the ones that are in the episodes. I kinda wanted this to be a mostly original story, so that's what'll be going down. I'm looking forward to the Barry stuff, though. 'Scuse me while I laugh about how awkward those chapters are gonna be. Oh, boy. **

**Thanks for reading, reviewing, favoriting, and following! I always appreciate any feedback. **

**~J**


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